Route reliability record
ORD→EWR
Chicago to Newark
- Flights
- 6,126
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 719 mi
- Carriers
- 5
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.8% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about seven flights in ten arrive on time, worth a C− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 6,126 ORD to EWR flights, of which Envoy Air flew 533 at 78.0% on time.
Best time to fly ORD to EWR: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.4% of the time and Tuesday flights 75.1%, against 69.8% for the route overall.
Envoy Air is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 78.0% on time across 533 flights.
Key figures
On time
69.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 5,869 completed flights
Avg delay
87 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.82%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Envoy
78.0% on time across 533 flights
These figures cover 6,126 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 14.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on ORD to EWR
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Envoy Air arrives on time 78.0% of the time; American Airlines manages 59.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 926 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Air | 533 | 78.0% | 60 min | 5.82% | B− |
| United Airlines | 4,415 | 72.0% | 89 min | 2.85% | C |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 102 | 60.2% | 83 min | 7.84% | D− |
| American Airlines | 926 | 59.0% | 87 min | 4.97% | D− |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 150 | 45.6% | 79 min | 15.33% | F− |
Envoy Air cancels 5.8% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Flight by flight
Flights on ORD to EWR
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Chicago to Newark
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 3 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. ORD → JFKChicago to New York | Republic Airways | 74.6% | 77.5% | 3.73% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 2. ORD → EWRChicago to Newark | Envoy Air | 73.5% | 78.0% | 5.82% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 3. ORD → HPNChicago to White Plains | Envoy Air | 73.4% | 76.3% | 3.78% | 8am–11am, Sat | MQ 3812 08:10 |
| 4. ORD → JFKChicago to New York | JetBlue Airways | 72.0% | 78.2% | 7.90% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 5. ORD → EWRChicago to Newark | United Airlines | 69.9% | 72.0% | 2.85% | 5am–8am, Tue | UA 563 07:10 |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
Departure window
The best time of day to leave
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 35 points, against 19 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am1,045 flights90.4%
- 8am–11am998 flights75.8%
- 11am–2pm1,138 flights70.7%
- 2pm–5pm1,210 flights63.6%
- 5pm–8pm1,097 flights55.2%
- 8pm–5am638 flights60.7%
Scale runs 45% to 95%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 55.2% on time, against 90.4% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 1,210 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ORD to EWR by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On ORD to EWR, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 90.4% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 55.2%, a wide gap of 35.2 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am90.4%
- 8–11am75.8%
- 11am–2pm70.7%
- 2–5pm63.6%
- 5–8pm55.2%
- 8pm–5am60.7%
best all US flightsScale 45% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 21 points from best month to worst, which is wide. An annual average tells you very little about the week you are actually flying, so read the strip rather than the headline if your dates are fixed.
July is the worst month at 60.4% on time, 21 points below May, the best at 81.5%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. May was the busiest month here, with 552 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 75.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 65.9%, a spread of 9 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 153,000 reported delay minutes.
- 38%Late-arriving aircraft
- 36%National Airspace System
- 20%Carrier
- 6%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
38% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 153,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 to one. The split is drawn from 153,359 reported delay minutes.
36% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 56,000 minutes out of 153,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations run at 3.82%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 25 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
14.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 719 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty.
The return leg runs 70.7% on time across 6,123 flights, within about a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 6,126 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in EWR after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.82% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 5,869 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ORD to EWR questions
How often is ORD to EWR delayed?
Roughly one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 30.2% of the 6,126 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on ORD to EWR?
Envoy Air leads at 78.0% on time across 533 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 59.0%, a gap of 19 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on ORD to EWR?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 90.4% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 55.2%, 35 points behind. Later departures inherit delays from earlier flights the same aircraft has already flown, which is why the curve slopes the way it does.
How bad are July delays on ORD to EWR?
July is the weakest month at 60.4% on time, compared with 81.5% in May. Across the year that is 21 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.
Related
Where to go next
- EWR to ORD — the return legseparate record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Newark Liberty International (EWR) delay statistics
- Envoy Air on ORD to EWR78.0%
- United Airlines on ORD to EWR72.0%
- Republic Airways on ORD to EWR60.2%
- American Airlines on ORD to EWR59.0%
- Spirit Airlines on ORD to EWR45.6%
- ORD to LGA, a related route66.6%
- MCO to EWR, a related route75.0%
- ORD to BOS, a related route66.6%
- Envoy Air on-time record78.0%
- United Airlines on-time record72.0%
- Republic Airways on-time record60.2%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. ORD to EWR and EWR to ORD are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.